


The Garden

by f0rever15elf



Category: Triple Frontier (2019)
Genre: Drug use mention, F/M, Pedro Pascal - Freeform, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:54:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27074566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f0rever15elf/pseuds/f0rever15elf
Summary: Frankie has left to help out Pope on some vague mission, he wouldn't tell you just what exactly, and you wait for his return. You find yourself spending your days gardening. You weren’t prepared for the news he brings home with him.
Relationships: catfish morales / reader, frankie 'catfish morales' / reader, frankie morales / reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	The Garden

You had always loved your little garden. Whether it be in pot planters on your apartment’s balcony or the raised bed in the backyard of your first home or the small flowerbed in the front yard of your mother’s house, surrounded by plants with your hands in the cool soil is where you felt most at home. No matter the stresses of the day, everything melted away as you dug your fingers into the yielding earth, still damp from the morning’s watering. **  
**

Some of your most treasured memories happened while you were in the garden; your mother running out excitedly with your acceptance letter to MIT, your best friend phoning you to ask you to be her maid of honor, that same friend later asking you to be the godmother to her first born as you both sat pruning the roses. All of those moments paled in comparison, though, to the two most important moments of your life. The day Francisco Morales asked you out, officially, for the first time, the words tumbling from his lips in a nervous stutter, and the day he knelt down among the blooming hyacinth and iris to ask for the privilege of calling you his forever. 

A delicate smile graces your lips as the memories play through your mind’s eye as you till the soil around the fall vegetables. Frankie had been the best thing to ever happen to you, you had no doubt of that. Even the most difficult of days, like the day you found out about the little habit he had picked up to keep the nightmares at bay, were still better than the days before he was yours. The gold of the wedding band adorning your finger catches the light of the sun as you finish turning over the soil, and you sit back on your heels to look at it for a moment. The pad of your thumb traces over it lightly as your mind drifts to your husband, currently away on a mission. A favor for Pope, he had called it. 

**

_“What is it, baby?” you asked, running your fingers through his soft curls at the nape of his neck, his head resting on his crossed arms on the table. The sigh he had let out was one from the depths of his soul, a sigh you hadn’t heard him let out in a very long time. He turned his head, still resting on his arms, to look at you, confliction lighting them that caused an immediate crease in your own brow. “Frankie…?"_

_"It’s Pope.” His voice was gruff and tired and the corners of your lips turned town imperceptibly._

_“Santi? What does he want? It’s been…years…since we’ve heard anything from him.” Your fingers had moved from the nape of his neck when he turned his head, now tracing gently along his stubbly jaw._

_“A favor,” Frankie said simply. “He wants to get me and the guys back together. Says he needs to talk to us about something big. He’s…he’s saying it’s 17k for a week of work.” Your eyebrows lifted at that. Seventeen thousand was a lot of money, and though you two weren’t necessarily barely scraping by, 17 thousand dollars would certainly make things easier, especially with the courses Frankie was having to go through for counseling._

_“What kind of favor?” You ask after a moment, but Frankie just shrugged._

_“Didn’t say.” He sat up and took your hand from his face, his calloused thumb running over your knuckles._

_“…Are you going to go?” You asked quietly, watching your hands and he sighed again._

_“We could use the money,_ cariño _.” You closed your eyes for a moment before looking back up at him. He was right, and you knew it. No matter how much every fiber of your being was screaming that this was a bad idea._

_“I know.” You squeezed his hand gently and brought your other up to cup his cheek. He leaned into the touch and his eyes fluttered for a moment before he refocused on you. “…Be careful,_ amor _. Ok?” He nodded in your hand and turned to kiss your palm gently. “And tell Santi if anything happens to you, I will personally murder him and use his body as fertilizer in the garden.” Frankie’s eyebrows shot up at that one as he looked back to you. After a moment, he chuckled and nodded, reaching up to bring your forehead to his._

_“He wouldn’t dare to cross you,_ hermosa, _I’m sure of that.”_

**

It was only supposed to have been a week, he had said. Yet here you were, sitting alone in your garden nearly a week after he was supposed to have been back safe in your arms. You let out a groan as you stood, your knees protesting from the position you had been in for too long, moving to the next row to pluck some weeds from around your corn stalks. That nervous feeling you had pool in your stomach when Frankie had told you about this ‘favor’ had never left you, and the longer he was gone, the worse it got. Especially since you haven’t heard from him the entire time he’s been gone. What if something had happened? What if this 'favor’ turned south?

You shake your head rapidly, clearing the thoughts from your head as you busy yourself with plucking the weeds. If you get caught up in thoughts like that without Frankie here to pull you out, you wouldn’t be sleeping at all until he came home. The cool soil that you usually found so much solace in had been doing less and less over the past two or three days, your anxieties always high, mind always drifting to 'what if’s. It was like the connection you had always felt with the earth had been interrupted, and a frown pulls at the corners of your lips. 

So lost are you in your own thoughts, you didn’t hear the backdoor open, nor did you hear the sounds of heavy footfalls across the yard. It wasn’t until the shadow blocked out the sun over you that you jump and whip around, your trowel brandished in your hand. You blink a few times before the trowel hits the ground as you leap to your feet, wrapping your arms around Frankie’s neck in a desperate hug. His arms find their way around you, holding you as close to him as he possibly can, his face dropping to hide against your neck and shoulder. You can feel the tension in his muscles relaxing in your hold, the stress of these two weeks melting away under your touch. 

“I missed you so much…I was so worried,” turning your head to whisper against his unruly hair. 

“I’m sorry, _estrella_ …things got out of hand. I’m so sorry.” He holds you tighter, his body trembling against yours, and you feel a dampness against your shoulder, soaking through your shirt. 

“Oh Frankie…” your voice is barely above a whisper as your fingers play at the back of his neck, rubbing soothing circles against his skin. “It’s alright, you’re safe now. I’m here, I’ve got you.” Your words illicit from him quiet sobs as he cries in your arms. 

“W-We lost Tom, _querida_.” You freeze at his words, your blood running cold in your veins. 

“What…?” You rasp, barely a whisper. 

“Th-This village. We crashed and…and they got threatening and Tom…Tom shot some of them. I shot some of them. They were going to attack us!” You hold him tighter as his voice raises, shushing softly as your fingers resume their soothing ministrations. 

“It’s ok, Francisco, it’s ok. I’m sure you did what you thought was best at the time.” His whimper against your shoulder rends your heart in two and you swear you are going to make good on your promise about Santiago as you hold your trembling husband in your arms. After a moment to regain his thoughts, Frankie lets out a shaky breath. 

“A boy from the village followed us. He…He shot Tom, he killed him.” Your mind goes immediately to Tom’s ex-wife and children, and your heart clenches in mourning for them. Those little girls were too young to have to suffer through this, and the thought brings tears to your own eyes. “We couldn’t save him, we let him down…” he chokes out through his tears. Your grip tightens and you lean your head back, cupping Frankie’s cheek to lift his face to look at you. His eyes are blood-shot and glassy from crying, and they scream in desperation. You gently wipe away the tears with the pad of your thumb. 

“Now you listen to me, Francisco Morales. I know you did all you could. I know you did, because that’s who you are. I don’t have to know all of the details about whatever this was, to know you did all you could.” You rest your forehead against his own, pushing his hat off of his head. “You did all you could, do you understand me? That’s all anyone can ever ask of you. You did all you could, and you brought the others home.” He clings to you like you’re his last lifeline, the last thing keeping him from spiraling so far down he would never come back up and he nods nearly imperceptibly, his bottom lip trembling. 

“I was scared, _amor_ ,” he whispers, voice thick with tears. “I was scared I would never see you again.” You tilt his head gently and press a delicate, chaste kiss to his lips, gentle and reassuring. 

“ _Mi amor_ , it’s ok now, yes? I’ve got you, you’re home, and we’re both safe.” His grip around your waist loosens as he reaches up to cup your own cheek, eyes flitting across your face before he tilts your head to reconnect his lips with yours, this more desperate than the gentle kiss you had placed on his lips moments before. You close your eyes, returning the kiss as he drinks you in, finding solace in your presence. The kiss is filled with all the things he can’t say, the words he can’t bring himself to speak just yet. 

You break the kiss after a few moments and he draws in a shaky breath, his tears finally slowing, his body limp with exhaustion. You reach and take his hand from your face gently in your own, your ring still glistening in the sunlight. “ _Vamos_ …Let’s go to bed, ok?” He nods weakly and drops his other hand from your waist, letting you lead him inside, sliding the door closed behind you with a click of the lock. A click he found comfort in. It meant this nightmare was finally over and he was home. Finally, Francisco Morales could rest. 

The garden holds so many good memories for you. The garden was where you fell in love. It was where you were asked to join another’s family. It was where you gave yourself to the love of your life forever. And it was where you were the day your whole world returned to your arms. 


End file.
